Is your regular gel-mani-pedi putting you at risk of getting cancer? Sadly, yes.
According to the NYPost, a new study found that radiation from UV manicure dryers can damage DNA and cause cell mutation.
“If you look at the way these devices are presented, they are marketed as safe, with nothing to be concerned about,” study co-author Ludmil Alexandrov, a bioengineering and cellular and molecular medicine professor at UC San Diego, said in a statement.
“But to the best of our knowledge, no one has actually studied these devices and how they affect human cells at the molecular and cellular levels until now.”
In the study published Tuesday (January 14) in Nature Communications, UC researchers analyzed three cell lines (human skin keratinocytes, human foreskin fibroblasts, and mouse embryonic fibroblasts) in two different conditions of UV exposure.
The findings indicated that UV manicure dryer light exposure for one 20-minute session caused 20% to 30% of exposed cells to die, while three consecutive 20-minute sessions caused 65% to 70% of cell death.
The remaining cells weren’t out of the woods either – they suffered DNA damage and cell mutations, drawing parallels to skin cancer.
“We saw multiple things: first, we saw that DNA gets damaged,” Ludmil continued.
“We also saw that some of the DNA damage does not get repaired over time, and it does lead to mutations after every exposure with a UV-nail polish dryer. Lastly, we saw that exposure may cause mitochondrial dysfunction, which may also result in additional mutations.”
“We looked at patients with skin cancers, and we see the exact same patterns of mutations in these patients that were seen in the irradiated cells,” he added.
While studies show that over 100 million US women use some nail product, it’s unclear how many go for gel.
According to renowned dermatologist Melissa Piliang, the risk factor of UV manicure dryers heavily depends on the number of times beauty enthusiasts frequent their manicurists.
Weekly manicure seekers who dry their nails under UV lamps for over 10 minutes “might want to be worried,” she advised, adding that manicure lovers should bring broad-spectrum sunblock (with zinc and titanium) to the appointment to apply before using the UV dryers.
While there has been a laundry list of studies warning of exposure to UV lights in tanning beds (shown to be carcinogenic), none show the possible harmful effects of UV manicure dryers (despite the devices using a different spectrum of UV light).
However, the results observed by researchers were startling enough for co-author Maria Zhivagui to swear off her gel polish habit.
“When I was doing my Ph.D., I started hearing about gel manicures, which last longer than normal polish,” said Zhivagui, a postdoctoral scholar. “I was interested in trying out gel nail polish, particularly in the setting of working in an experimental lab where I frequently put gloves on and off to maintain a presentable appearance.”
Maria said she got gel manicures for years until she saw “the effects of radiation emitted by the gel polish drying device on cell death,” saying she was “shook”.
“I found this to be very alarming, and decided to stop using it.”
After noticing that individuals who chronically get gel polish using UV manicure dryers (mostly pageant contestants and estheticians) were developing “rare cancers in the fingers,” Ludmil decided to take on the case himself, noting very little research had been conducted in this area.
“Our experimental results and the prior evidence strongly suggest that radiation emitted by UV-nail polish dryers may cause cancers of the hand and that UV-nail polish dryers, similar to tanning beds, may increase the risk of early-onset skin cancer,” the authors wrote, adding that it’ll take decades to determine if these concerns should be the coup de grace for these UV lamps.
* This article was originally published here
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